Yours truly struggled a bit years ago when I renamed the blog from "philmon" to the current name, thinking the new name sounded a bit too cocky, which is something I am not, at all. But blog brother Morgan assured me it wasn't, and said he liked it. Truthfully, I liked it, too -- it's exactly what I felt like doing, and reflects the inspiration behind my starting the blog in the first place. Yelling at NPR in the car, talking back to CNN, and muttering things under my breath in response to dumb sh*t progressive family and friends said. I felt like I needed to get out there and start swinging a Clue Bat around -- albiet mostly for batting practice, which I sorely needed. I still need it, but not as badly. It has helped me tremendously.... and now instead of 40 hits a month, I'm up to around 1,500 to 1,700 (this month it has hit 2,300, but 500 of those were in one day. I'm guessing on my 53% post. But can't be sure. Logs rolled over).

But philmon thanks TrogloPundit for the kind words, and will link him under "friends of this blog" and check his out for a while. It looks pretty good from here.

Beck put together a good show on it the other night. I recommend you set some time aside and watch it if you haven't.

It'll take some patience, if you haven't been up on who's who in leftist revolutionary circles -- if you haven't read Alinsky or Cloward and Piven, or if you're not familiar with Soros's "Open Society" and the fluid, multi-headed hydra of SEIU, ACORN, AFL-CIO, SDS, APOLLO, TIDES, etc.

I guess nights are getting a little nippy. I saw a video a few weeks ago at which a homeless person camping out amongst the OWS protesters said he was just happy that the cops would probably leave him alone since they're not arresting the protesters -- but that he thought they'd be outta there the first cold wind that came through. From the article:

These are the damning images that prove the anti-capitalist protest that has closed St Paul’s Cathedral is all but deserted at night.

Footage from a thermal imaging camera taken late at night reveals just a fraction of the makeshift camp was occupied.

An independent thermal imaging company, commissioned by the Daily Mail, captured these pictures after similar footage from a police helicopter found only one in ten tents were occupied after dark.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

I'm pretty much in full agreement with the author. The whole thing is pretty good ... here are a couple of quotes that stuck out:

With regard to those evangelicals -- and for that matter, those ultra-orthodox Jews -- who believe that Earth is less than 10,000 years old and that there either were no dinosaurs or that they lived alongside human beings, my reaction has always been: So what? I believe that Earth is many millions of years old, that "six days" is meant as six periods of time (the sun wasn't even created until the third day, so how could there have been any days before then?) and that dinosaurs preexisted man by millions of years.

But what real-life problem is caused by people who believe otherwise? Does it affect any of their important behaviors in life? Do they not take their children to doctors? Do they oppose medical research? Do they reject scientific discoveries that affect our lives? No. Not at all. Are there no evangelical or ultra-orthodox Jewish doctors? Of course there are, and apparently they are very comfortable learning and practicing science.

Compared to the many irrational beliefs of secular, leftist intellectuals -- good and evil exist even though there is no God; male and female are interchangeable; international institutions are the hope of mankind -- evangelical irrational beliefs are utterly benign.

and

This Jew will take the evangelicals' values and the evangelicals' America over those of left-wing intellectuals' any day of the year. If evangelicals come with some views I find irrational, that's a tiny price to pay compared to the price humanity has paid for the left's consistently broken moral compass...

Next thing you know they'll require a little audio device like in those talking greeting cards that activates when you pick up the bottle and gives you the nutrition information in 17 different languages, of course, adding cost to the price of a gallon of milk and lots more batteries in our landfills, but hey! People can't be trusted to look for the information themselves.

I know, here's a "jobs" program!!!! Each grocery aisle should have 3 nutrtion readers per aisle. The Nutrition Readers Union will require that you request an item off the shelf, and then they read you the nutrition information to you so that you can decide - wait, did I say "decide"? What was I thinking?

We should all just be required to hire nutrition agents to do our grocery shopping for us, for, let's say, a 15% commission? Well wait, they'll need to have degrees in dietary science first, and they'll need to pay off those student loans, so a 25% commission.

But the poorer among us won't be able to afford the new higher cost, so we'll need to subsidize that, too, so 30%. After all, everybody eats healthy if we "spread the butter around."

Another "problem" solved by government! Whew! Glad we dodged that disaster!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Morgan and Mark shared a Bastiat Institute fb link with a Penn Jillette quote about charity and the role of government.

I thought the money quote was this one: "You get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right."

Of course when it comes down to things that impinge on people's life, liberty, or property -- theft and fraud, murder, damage to our environment, assault ... well yeah. Those are the source of the basic laws of the land.

But one liberal commenter said that it was, in fact, the role of government to provide public education because it is "in the public interest", and he went on to say:

"Once upon a time, we had a society without public assistance programs. Everything was done through private charities. It didn't work very well."

Hmmmm. And families performing their duty to help each other out, but able to withhold support if it were clear they were taken advantage of. It didn't work very well? How is it working better today?

Today we have nameless people giving other people's money to people they don't know. The recipients look on it as a right. It disincentivizes doing whatever one can to get one's own ass out of one's bad situation.

Today we pump much more money into it, only this money buys votes and influence and invites fraud and corruption.

Schools? Yes, our founders did believe public education was important, and they left it up to the states and local communities to provide it. The current system has our communities jockeying for money for education, rather than on getting education for their money. The priorities are flipped and we see the results.

I, too, believe the average liberal honestly wants to help people. Would that they could see past their noses to see that we do, too. But that the "obvious" easy "solutions" produce the illusion of success -- but only because we measure "success" now in dollars rather than results.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

A friend posted a "sign" in the spirit of the 53'ers on facebook, and a friend of his made a comment calling the guy who wrote the sign (and held it in front of his face, unsigned) "narccistic" for displaying the fact that he sacrificed for what he has, and that he thinks others should, too.

What's on that paper is not narcissism. It's a sign that says "quitcher bitchin'" to the OWS people out there calling for free college education or to have a bank pay off his student loans because "that's what I want" and calling to replace "Capitalism" with "a more just economic model" while your friends interject and plead with you not to articulate just what it is you mean in front of a TV camera.

It's all fine and good to say "everybody deserves 'The American Dream'" and then go define some pie in the sky baseline for it. But somebody has to pay for it. And somebody has to do the producing to provide the goods and services with enough left over to turn around and buy it for you because you think you deserve it just for being an American.

As the Nace Brothers put it, "There's a lot of people in exotic places who spend all day tryin' to feed their faces. They'd love a shot at what you've got, so you better hold on while you can"

I lived within my means and worked for what I got and didn't buy more than I worked for. I don't have a lot of sympathy for people out on the street tweeting to each other about Corporate Greed on their iPhones, crapping on cop cars and burning American flags, stripping naked and painting their bodies garishly to get attention and garner praise for their "awareness" and "activism".

It's less about protesting than being seen protesting, because it's the "it" thing to do.

If you want to know who the narcissists are, it's precisely the ones out there doing the "occupying".

Here's the thing that grounds me.

Cavemen had food and shelter and worked all day to get it. Anything beyond that is gravy.

If I have food and shelter and people around me who love me, what do I care that someone else has eleventy trillion dollars, 60 yachts, and a space ship?

As long as he can't take my food and shelter and family, and my ability to work for more and actually get to keep it and share it with whom I please.

Monday, October 17, 2011

A modern day little red hen may not sound like or appear to be a quotable authority on economics but then some authorities aren't worth quoting. I'll be right back.

About a year ago I imposed a little poetry on you. It was called "The Incredible Bread Machine" and made a lot of sense with reference to matters economic. You didn't object too much so having gotten away with it once I'm going to try again. This is a little treatise on basic economics called "The Modern little Red Hen."

Once upon a time there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered some grains of wheat. She called her neighbors and said 'If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?'

"Not I, " said the cow.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Not I," said the pig.

"Not I," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen. And she did. The wheat grew tall and ripened into golden grain. "Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Out of my classification," said the pig.

"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.

"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen, and she did.

At last the time came to bake the bread. "Who will help me bake bread?" asked the little red hen.

"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.

"I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck.

"I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig.

"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for the neighbors to see.

They all wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, "No, I can eat the five loaves myself."

"Excess profits," cried the cow.

"Capitalist leech," screamed the duck.

"I demand equal rights," yelled the goose.

And the pig just grunted.

And they painted "unfair" picket signs and marched round and around the little red hen shouting obscenities.

When the government agent came, he said to the little red hen, "You must not be greedy."

"But I earned the bread," said the little red hen.

"Exactly," said the agent. "That's the wonderful free enterprise system. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations productive workers must divide their products with the idle."

And they lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, I am grateful." But her neighbors wondered why she never again baked any more bread.

It just occurred to me what he's doing. He posts these links to stories that promote bits of the "liberal" or progressive agenda, but he posts them as "interesting to think about".

Thus he gets to promote his ideology without taking responsibility for it. "Hey, I didn't SAY I agreed with it, I just found it interesting".

Ooooo-kaaaayyyyy.

This one was a Daily Kos post (but no, he's not a radical liberal, he's been a life long Republican until he drove people to the polls to vote for Obama in a state other than the one in which he lives ... but I digress ... and posts links to HuffPo and Kos)

It's a rant about one of the 53%'ers photos. And a Kos ramble about "well you shouldn't have to work that hard in the greatest country on earth, and what if you need health care or lose your job..." and how they didn't like his face.

Another guy commented that he did an analysis of the guy to figure out how he could easily be a part of the 47%, if such and such parameters he plugged into a spreadsheet were assumed.

The open letter starts out thus: "although I think you’ve made yourself clear and I think I understand you..."

Well, he doesn't. Understand him, that is. It occurred to me that this completely misses the point.

I commented:

Completely missing the point. The point is, he takes his life into his own hands, and neither asks nor expects anything from strangers.

Of course, every one of us is free to help anyone we like. There are, and have always been individuals and organizations dedicated to this.

But big pots of Other People's Money are, always have been, and always will be magnets to those with power to misuse, abuse, and skim, for starters. And the negative social impacts have manifest themselves around us for decades. Liberals "solve" this by looking in ever-expanding circles for places to get more, because the answer to them is always more.

It is very easy to be Liberal with Other People's Money.

These people confuse the role of government and the role of society, and any attempt to separate the two means you're unfeeling or uncaring.

What's great about America is that you can put yourself out like this and reap the rewards ... the delayed gratification. But what this Kos author doesn't seem to get is the lesson of The Little Red Hen.

The difference between the 99'ers and the 53'ers (outside of general worldview and the glaring difference in the civility of the behavior) -- is that the 53'ers are specifically not complaining. They're pretty much just pointing out to the 99'ers that they are, and to stop whinning.

Friday, October 14, 2011

In a reply to tim's comment on the last post, a phrase materialized in my head describing what it is I don't like about watching political debates.

They're not debates.

They're soundbite flypaper.

Oh, I suppose soundbites are useful, but I don't need to watch them get produced. I'll hear them later. The debate -- the real debate -- happens out here. Between us. Between we, the people. Arguing ideals and ideas. Arguing principles and cause and effect and consequences.

I've been slow to get on the Cain bandwagon, though I've never DISliked him. What I like about him is what I liked about Sarah Palin, really (tough, Palin Haters, I like the woman). A combination of worldview, principles, and the fact that they're not Politicians first (yet).

Little turns me off faster than "yeah, well he knows how to play the game". This is what people like Romney & Perry have going for them. "Experience". Experience at what, exactly? What they mean is experience playing the machine.

But I don't want someone to play the machine.

I want someone who's basic philosophy is to simplify the machine within the confines of the blueprint. Which will, over time, necessarily move us closer to that blueprint. We need a little Jesus goes ballistic in the Temple in Washington. "What are you doing to my house????"

9-9-9

It's really got nothing to do specifically with 9-9-9. 9-9-9 probably wouldn't pass as is. But it's that kind of thinking that I want. A president can't make laws, anyway. They can propose them. But it's up to Congress to make them law or not.

9-9-9 is on the right track. Broaden the tax base, lower corporate taxes, and provide a formula for adjusting an eventual flat/fair tax.

There, I said it. Ok, this isn't so much about what "he" IS -- he is a man and an American first and foremost -- but this attribute, and his popularity among especially Tea Party conservatives, really finally blows the whole "conservatives are bigots" argument. True, anyone paying attention should be aware by now that today's "conservative" movement is really more about our founding principles than anything else, and our founding principles clearly state that all men are created equal. It does not say that everything in their houses should be made equal. But they are created equal. Which is why republicans (people who see our nation as a Constitutional Republic) and the party they started (capital "R") have always fought for this view to become manifest in society and government. Refusal to treat people unequally does not mean you have it in for the people the other side wants to give privilidges to.

So while his race wouldn't actually be a deciding factor in my support, this post is entitled, "What I Like About Herman Cain" ... and as a presidential candidate, I do like this about him at this moment in our history. It takes the Democrats' favorite bogus argument off the table. Not that they won't still try it, but it'll fall flat on the American Peoples' ears. We're not stupid.

It looks like this is the field we're getting. Like Fred Thompson last time around, this guy's my guy. We'll see what happens in the primaries.

"Is America ready to make history by electing the first black president to replace a black president?"

Despite what the self-congratulatory left, the media and Hollywood (but I repeat myself) keep telling you, America does not care what color skin the President of the United States has, nor is it concerned with the gender. America is over it, why don't they join us?

Oh, that's right. They're too busy patting themselves on the back because they still believe that not being a bigot is something unusual that sets them apart from the rest of America. They've got too much of their inflated self-image tied up in that.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Diane Sawyer of ABC says the OWS protests have spread to 250 cities and over a thousand countries. Which I'm pretty sure means it must've spread to at least 5 other planets like ours, since we have just shy of 200 nation-states on this one (195?).

I imagine it's spread to all 57 states as well. It's spread to "every continent except Antacrtica".

Those lazy, racist Antarcticans. I hear the whole place is just covered in white.

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Ok, I just got steamed. The truce with fb "TruceBoy" is off. He called it off a couple of weeks ago by asking my opinion on a political subject.

And tonight, he posted this bit of Progressive Snark.

Oh, hee-hee, ho-ho, I didn't mean anything by it I just found it funny.

No.

I've had it past my eyeballs with this.

And I'm afraid I had to open with both barrels on it.

Let's beat ourselves up over the fact this is pretty much how the entire human history of the world had been up to that point, probably since before we dropped from the trees. Let's also ignore the fact that native tribes did the exact same thing to each other before "we" ever got here. There's not one place on the planet that wasn't taken from other people over the millennia, most of them multiple times.

Let's all get on the Critical Theory and deconstruction of Western Civilization bandwagon and show everybody how morally superior we are by tearing down 500 year old heroes and publicly flogging them so we'll all get the warm fuzzies from our college professors going on about the patriarchal heteronormative theocratic hegemony of the culture that brought you liberty and Constitutionally restrained government. The idea that rights do not come from man or his agent, government. That they pre-exist.

There's only two groups of people on the timeline with an unique claim to it. The current occupants, and Clovis Man.

I studied in school and got called a nerd. I took harder courses in math and science, and my GPA suffered for it, but I got some tools I would need. I milked cows and split wood and cooked food from scratch for my family when I was a kid.

My first job in high school was weeding the gravel bed of a septic tank overflow. I followed that by cleaning cabins, mowing grass, and washing dishes. I rode my bicycle 7.5 miles to and from work.

I went to college with the help of grants and a small scholarship, but paid for it mostly by working through it and taking out loans which I paid off, since I made sure I didn't get in over my head. My parents were financially unable to help me. I shelved books, slopped food, sold records, and lived in dormitories until I got my first degree, after which I lived in a drafty garage. I bought my first car at 23 for $500. It was almost as old as I was.

I worked at a student job in user support for a couple of years, showed up on time and did an excellent job, teaching myself things I was not taught in school. I was hired as a full-time employee, where I was rewarded with a low salary but got health insurance benefits. I continued to prove my worth with my employer, eventually managing the team that ran the Univerisity's email servers, getting rewarded more and more as I developed and proved my worth to my employer.

I met a good, honest woman, a single mom with two kids, just scraping by and took them on as my family when I got my first full-time job making about $20K. We lived in inexpensive housing, eventually buying a house that cost about a third of what my contemporaries were paying for theirs. I've never bought a new car. I minimized the risks I took and paid off the credit card which had gotten up to a nail biting $6,000 while we took on our new house. I still have a couple but I pay them off every month.

The job I have has a pension plan, but I put away a few hundred a month in addition so that I might be able to enjoy my retirement a little more and I realize that Social Security may go bankrupt by the time I retire -- rather than spending it on new cars, expensive phones and data plans, though I do spend a little on things to enjoy today as well.

I give to charity, I give to my family, pay my taxes, I work hard, I pay my bills, I plan for the future, and I make conservative choices. I live responsibly.
I am the 53%.

Saturday, October 08, 2011

My Spidey Sense is tingling. We've seen the Van Jones/MoveOn/Frances Piven/Labor Union "Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Together" protests. I've read Cloward and Piven's Strategy to End Poverty. I've seen the protests, small and inane as they may be, in our town.

And yesterday on our way back from lunch, I noticed a guy walking down the street and to his car in this really weird mask.

One in our group recognized it as from a movie I've never seen called "V for Vendetta". I didn't think much of the comment, as it is October and Halloween is approaching and I do live in a bit of an arty, hippy-dippy ... in many ways, College town.

Then I saw a video on YouTube today with someone with this mask on, claiming to be with this "Anonymous" movement I've heard of, vaguely, as a bunch of anarchist hackers. Well I work in IT, so that's the angle I heard it from. And I looked up some more videos.

They're a bit creepy. Something's up, and it may be big.

During my forays, I noted that it is also referred to as a Guy Fawkes mask.

Guy Fawkes I did remember as some British revolutionary, and that there is a Guy Fawkes day, and I remembered that as I looked at the "Occupy Together" sign on the ground that said "Guy Fawkes News" ...

And then I saw a "turn off your facebook account day" as well ... which is Nov 5. Which happens to be Guy Fawkes Day.

Now Guy Fawkes tried to be anonymous, until somebody outed him. I think that's why the fascination with Guy Fawkes here.

Frankly, I don't care if people turn off their facebook accounts, but something seems to be fairly well orchestrated here, and that, as I said, combined with other things I know, makes my spidey sense tingle. And not in a Chris Matthews/Barack Obama way.

If you've read Cloward and Piven, and indeed the things Cloward and Piven probably read (the history of fomented Socialist Revolutions) they need something. They need two things. Unrest, directed at "the status quo", and some violence to go with it. They need it. And they don't really care much who does it, it's just the crisis they need to bring in their populist and be "the solution" to "our problems". And by "our" I mean we the original Forgotten Man (pre FDR). They will sweep in and save society from this unrest and violence, if only we hand the reins of power to them.

It happened in Russia. It happened in Cuba. It's happened in many places.

But they need that violence, regardless of where it comes from. Crisis.

They hoped the financial crisis would be enough to bring about this fundamental transformation, and indeed they did get their guy in there largely because of it. But then the Tea Party happened. So they looked to the Tea Party for it, and have, multiple times, tried to provoke violent responses from us -- sending SEIU thugs to townhalls and Tea Party events, or the Congressional Black Caucus publicly marching through the presumed racists Tea Partiers in DC on their way to sign the Health Care Bill, or the very haughty march of Pelosi with her giant gavel, chin in the air, through the crowd.. But the Tea Party is largely made up of The Forgotten Man, and it didn't work. We don't work that way.

Mean time, their guy in the White House is imploding, over half the states are suing over Obamacare, they lost their majority in the House and lost a bunch in the Senate and it's not looking good for them in 2012.

They passed some bold and unpopular, probably unconstitutional legislation using in-your-face sleazy tactics, and I think they thought two things would happen. 1) I think they really did think that The People would "come around" after they passed it, and 2) I think they didn't think it would matter because passed legislation is... 9/10 of the law ... whether its constitutional or not. Or even good.

Have you ever noticed that a dying tree throws up a zillion shoots from the stump before it goes in an attempt to extend its existence? I have observed it, and I've even seen it work. Yeah, the tree almost has to start over except for its root system, but the same organism often survives,

I think the forces, the NGO's that got Obama elected are doing this, and this is the "Occupy Together" movement. It is not only a fight for survival, but it is one designed to, they hope, bring about the unrest and violence they need (seriously, read the paper). It's pretty clear. The strategy extends to anything they want.

Now these people, the ones behind it, are not anarchists. But they'll use anarchists. And Democrats, and capital "L" Libertarians. And students who want their loans forgiven, or free college, or "green energy" . And peaceniks and pot smokers and pretty much anybody who'll get out on the street and make a stink for any reason. But they are Socialists, and by that I mean Marxists. They want control, and of course, this time they'll get it right. (You know, because the only reason Socialism hasn't worked is that the right people haven't been in charge, and They Are The People They've Been Waiting For).

Even so, they may not actually have enough together, and it might not work. But there is a danger that it will. However, it won't work if We the People don't freak out. Because that's what the unrest and violence is supposed to accomplish. We're supposed to freak out and demand that "someone" step in and fix it.

Well in America, the Government is Us, and hopefully enough of that attitude remains to ward off attempts at having someone else step in and ... "Fundamentally Transform" it by usurping that idea (all the while claiming that it was Democratic because we demanded it) -- imposing Socialism and the totalitarianism it always takes to enforce it.

So stay on your toes, peeps. Keep your cool. Know what you believe, and do not be afraid to defend it to your family, friends, and co-workers.

Friday, October 07, 2011

I watched Sarah Palin's "The Undefeated" last night. Basically a documentary of her career. And it pretty much confirmed what my general impression of her has been. That she really was an ordinary, hard-working, middle-class citizen that got into local politics for the right reasons, and rocketed to stellar success by ... not being a politician. I defy you to find any facts (facts, mind you) that say different.

This allowed her to simply resign from a 6 figure salary job she found herself in when appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission -- over the deep corruption she saw there.

This is not something politicians do.

This made her wildly popular with Alaskans, and 3 years later she ran for governor and won, slashing state spending and simultaneously increasing state income, and holding a consistent 80%+ approval rating. She stared down big oil executives into sh*tting or getting off the pot on oil leases, broke its monopoly on oil leases and opened it to true competition, did not use the Governor's chef, preferred to sleep at home when possible, sold the Governor's jet, refused to take a commission-reccomended pay raise ... and using about 20% of what the previous governor used in expenses.

It was only after she was chosen to run as McCain's vice presidential candidate that her whole history was suddenly and retroactively revised to that of a corrupt idiot.

Frankly, I think she's exactly the kind of person we need in the White House. Buck stops here, no-nonsense, get it done steward of The Peoples' freedom.

I read Katie Couric's blurb on Palin deciding not to run in 2012. In it, she talked about "the question", “And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?”

Well, you know what? I don't, myself, regularly read any particular newspapers or magazines. I read articles from dozens of them, but I don't pay a lot of attention to what publication the article appeared in - I'm more interested in the content of the articles. I don't have a publication I turn to for a "media guru" to validate my opinions.

And just like most regular Americans, I suspect neither did Palin. Now if I sat and thought about it, I could name some. (WSJ, NYT, UK Times, LA Times, Miami Hearald, Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, Washington Post, Orange County Register. I even occasionally read Slate and Mother Jones articles. But I'm not in the middle of an interview with Katie Couric. I got a chance to sit and think about it without my readers seeing an awkward pause. And nobody's playing "gotcha" with me on National TV) And again, their names aren't important to me.

As for her resignation as governor, it seems to me that Palin got more accomplished in 2 years than many governors accomplish in 4 or even 8, and I completely understand that the onslaught of politically motivated and universally dismissed as frivolous "ethics complaints" that were filed against her along with the sudden turn of Democrats who had been working well with her -- now suddenly against her, as well as establishment Republicans' desire to distance themselves from her sudden supposed idiocy -- some still smarting from her clamping down on corruption and cronyism ... was breaking her family financially (the Palins were not rich, and a half million dollars was a lot of money!). And it was also paralyzing any efforts to get her previously popular, but now suddenly taboo -- agenda passed.

She did the right thing.

Like she's always done when the chips were down.

This is a good woman. This is an exceptional woman. The Christophobes and political cronies just don't want you to realize it.

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Saw a post on Facebook about the controversy over the "Introduction to Labor Studies"/"Labor, Politics, and Society" course being taught jointly at UMKC/UMSL that one or more students exposed via Breitbart's "Big Government" site.

The discussion on facebook was about the Faculty Council revising it's policies on classroom recordings to prohibit sharing written or recorded material from a class outside the classroom. Something to do with privacy and the inhibition of free discussion.

One has to wonder what these people thought of Julian Assaunge's Wikileaks, at least while it's torrent was aimed at the Bush Administration. But one probably does not have to wonder much.

At any rate, I saw in the article that“officials on both campuses agreed they distorted the educators’ views”. Which I'm sure were completely unbiased assessments from people who support "_______ studies" classes.

The comments talked about the clips being edited and that the one lady's outfit changed several times in one video. And that they were pulled from YouTube due to "terms of use" violations. On the other hand, none of them said how any of this was relevant to the points being made about the videos. If you haven't seen them, it's all "he said/she said". And most people won't watch the videos.

I say watch the videos yourself and see if you think you can discern the instructors' intent, and whether or not you're good with using state money to pay for the promulgation of this Alinskian claptrap. Also, remember that this kind of technology automatically flips back and forth between the cameras, on opposite sides of the state, depending on who is speaking. That's not all "edits" (not that there aren't edits), that's the way this stuff works.

Monday, October 03, 2011

Went out to a kind of "Bachelor Party" for my older son Friday evening. There were 7 of us, and it mostly consisted of walking to a few bars downtown where I managed 5 beers in 6 hours. Real rowdy.

As we were walking downtown, I noticed a small group of people in front of the new city building, holding up signs. Mostly about hugs and kittens. At first I thought maybe it was some church group trying to win over us hard-core alcoholics or something.

I commented to one of the guys that maybe this was part of that manufactured "movement". I said if it was, I didn't think the Tea Party had a lot to worry about. Snagged the above photo off their facebook page, but I could easily have taken it myself, because these are the signs I saw. One commenter on their facebook page even noted, "nothing says "take us seriously" than holding up signs that have absolutely nothing to do with #occupycomo!" .

On our way home we walked through them. I noticed a Guy Fawkes sign and a few others on the ground. I hadn't seen them hold it up. Maybe someone said "Don't Say It, Bro!" More likely, the silly signs were meant to draw you in and then you'd come see their other signs while you were talking to them.

Oh, here. How convenient. One of them posted a picture of those signs as well.

I also noted they were complaining that there were only 12-15 people there and they expected hundreds to show up and help protest. Well... that's a good sign as well. Heh. He said "sign".

There is nothing wrong with you. Yeah. We know. But y'all might want to check yourselves.